Satteelee aenold



(No Model.) S. ARNOLD.

ART OF UNITING FABRICS BY SEWING. I .No. 378,644. Patented Feb. 28,188B.

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UNITED STATES PATENT Orricn.

SATTERLEE ARNOLD, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., ASSIGNOR TO ANNA M. ARNOLD, OFSAME PLACE.

ART OF UNITING FABRICS BY SEWING.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 378,644.-, datedFebruary 28, 1889.

Application filed May 4, 1886. Serial No. 201,084. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, SATTERLEE ARNOLD, a citizen of the United States,residing at New York, in the county of New York and State of New York,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Art of UnitingFabrics by Sewing, of which the following is a specification, referencebeing had therein to the accompanying drawings.

My invention relates to the art of uniting fabrics in the formation ofgarments by machine-sewing, its object being the production of elasticseams composed of lock-stitches, the needle-punctures of which are allin a straight line, or approximately so, while the threads of the seamsare so disposed that there will be sufficient elasticity to admit of thestretching, when in use, of elastic fabrics united in accordance with myinvention without danger of breaking the sewing-threads. Moreover, by

my new method of sewing it is possible to gather threads very slack.

or shorten the seam simply by increasing the tension of the threads, soas to draw the stitches tight. Thus some kinds of work, as in tailoring,which have heretofore been done by hand can now be performed bymachinery, and the tendency to lengthen the seam by the sewing-threadswhen the stitches are made very close together may be compensated for.

For sewing elastic fabrics the loop or chain stitch has more generallybeen employed, owing to the great elasticity of the seams formedthereby; but this stitch is more or less objectionable by reason of thetendency of the seams to ravel should the thread break. The Grover 85Baker or double chain stitch, which is very strong and. elastic, hasalso been considerably used for uniting elastic fabrics; but it has nowmostly fallen into disuse by reason of the great amount of thread whichit requires.

The lock-stitch,owing to its great reliability, has come into verygeneral use, and attempts have been made to adapt it to elastic fabricsby forming irregular or zigzag seams with this form of stitch, and alsoby leaving the sewing The former of these plans has been in a measuresuccessful; but the latter is objectionable, as it does not bind thefabrics tight enough to hold them securely, and the seam is loose andopen. Thus, when the sewing is near the edge ofthe fabrics, the threadsof the latter are liable to fray or pull out, so that the hold of thesewing-threads thereon is lost and the seam broken. These objections areobviated by my invention, in which the unit-ing lock-stitches are formedalternately back of each other, so that there will be three lengths ofthe sewingthread between alternate pairs of stitches.

To distinguish my invention from the ordi- 6o nary back-stitch, formedby hand, I term the same the retrograde stitch. This stitch is made bythe machine embraced by my application No. 203,028,.filed May 22, 1886,by reciprocating the needle horizontally in the line of the feed or ofthe movement of the work; but it is obvious that the same result may beaccomplished by a feeding mechanism constructed to move the materialbeing sewed a long step forward and then a short step back- 73 ward.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a sectional diagram illustrating myinvention. Fig. 2 is a diagram in plan view. Fig. 3 is a plan view of aslightly-modified form of stitch, and Fig. 7 4 represents a garment(insideout) the seams of which are sewed according to my invention.

In the said drawings,A denotes the needle thread, 13 the shuttle orinterlocking thread, and G 0 sections of fabric.

I The needle first punctures the fabrics at l, and its loop isinterlocked by the shuttle or lower thread in any well-known manner. Theneedle nextpunctures the fabrics at 2,and after its loop is interlocked,as before, it retreats, (or the work is moved backward) so that the neXtstitch is a back or retrograde stitch at 3, the succeeding stitch a longforward one at i, the next a back-stitch at 5, and so on indefinitely,each alternate stitch being back of the previous one. Thus there will bethree lengths of sewing-thread on both sides of the superposed fabricsor of the work between alternate needle-punctures in the line of theseam and single lengths of sewing-thread on both sides of the workbetween the other needlepunctures, as shown in the drawings. These addedlengths of sewing-thread give elasticity to the seam, and thiselasticity may be varied,according to the elasticity of the fabricsbeing sewed, by varying the lengths of the back or retrograde stitchesrelative to the forward stitches.

While my invention is more particularly designed for use in connectionwith knit fabrics, I do not wish to be understood as limiting it to suchuse, as it is obvious that it can 5 be advantageously employed inconnection with other fabrics, as where it is desirable for any purposeto pucker or gather the work at the seams. It will also be understoodthat instead of making all of the stitches of the seam in onestraightline, as in Fig. 2, the back and forward stitches may be slightlystaggered, as in Fig. 3, without departing from the spirit of myinvention.

Having thus described my invention, I claim and desire to secure byLetters Patent- 1.. Ihe hereindescribed method of uniting fabrics bysewing, said method consisting in passing a needle, with its thread,through the fabrics, interlocking the needle-thread with a 20 secondthread, then again passing the needle and its thread through the fabricsat a point behind the first point and interlocking the threads, asbefore, and repeating these operations to form a seam of lock-stitcheswith the alternate stitches rearward of the advance or 25 forwardstitches, substantially as set forth.-

2. The combination, with two or more sections or thicknesses of fabric,of a series of lock-stitches of which alternate needle-punctures areback of the others, with threelengths 0 of sewing-thread on both sidesof the work between alternate punctures, substantially as set forth. 7 I

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

SATTERLEE ARNOLD.

\Vitnesses:

F. PORTER THAYER, PERoIvAL J. PARRIs'

